Imhotep by Jerry Dubs Read Free Book Online

and
the pyramids had been partly buried by sand; but closer to the Nile, the homes,
shops, schools and markets of the people who lived in Memphis had been
completely washed away by the relentless annual floods.  Although some of
the stone monuments at Saqqara had been quarried for later buildings, and
others had been vandalized, much of the ancient burial ground survived. 
    Nothing
was left of Memphis.
    The
Step Pyramid, the largest tomb at Saqqara, was closed to the public, as were
the five other large pyramids that stood outside the main complex. 
Throughout Egypt there were fewer and fewer tombs open to the public.  The
collective moisture exhaled by thousands and thousands of tourists had been
discovered to be more dangerous to wall paintings than the tomb robbers had
been five thousand years ago.
    But
tourists were still allowed to wander the open courtyards; to pass by the
resurrected walls of the colonnade; to walk through the massive geometric
entrance to the pyramid courtyard; to sit in the heb sed court, where King
Djoser had been re-crowned; to gaze up at the cobra-headed frieze along the
Southern Tomb and at the papyrus-capped pillars of the Northern Court. 
    The
burial complex was huge, far beyond the scale of monuments even imagined
today.  And the temples and carvings, colonnades and statues, all of that
work, that vision and beauty had been built to surround and showcase the
enormous Step Pyramid, the jewel of Djoser’s immortal resting place.  It
rose from the surrounding desert as if it had always been there and would
remain there always.  Weathered by sand and wind, crumbling from age, the
ruins were more imposing, more awe-inspiring than any pristine reconstruction
could have been. 
    Tim
imagined the workers, their wives and children, the priests, the dancers and
musicians, the soldiers and members of the royal court all standing before the
completed structure and sharing a single thought: that they, the people of
Egypt, had built this.  Their imagination and vision, their strong backs
and skillful hands, their precise measurements and understanding had brought
this form into existence.
    The
Step Pyramid is actually a tower built with a series of stone squares, or
mastabas, set atop each other, each one smaller.  The diminishing size of
the stacked mastabas give the pyramid its pointed shape through a series of
steps, unlike the more famous pyramids of Giza which had a smooth, slanted
alabaster encasing the stepped exterior.
    The
square base of the pyramid is about two hundred feet long on each side and
twenty-six feet high.  The six steps of the pyramid raise its peak almost
two hundred feet above the desert.  The entire structure is a headstone
for the burial chambers, which are deep underground.
    A main
shaft descends a hundred feet into the desert to Djoser’s burial chamber. 
From that central shaft a network of tunnels branches away, leading to rooms
where goods were stored for the king’s afterlife.  Eleven more shafts,
just east of the main tunnel, lead to additional burial chambers, possibly
intended for Djoser’s wives and daughters.
    Tim
put the guidebook aside.  As the evening had worn on, he had gotten
sleepy, but, afraid of being caught sleeping like Goldilocks if Brian and Diane
had come home late, he had made coffee using the small coffee pot in the
bathroom. 
    He
poured himself the last cup and sat at the room’s desk with his journal.
    “Addy,”
he wrote, “I’m hiding in a room at the Mena House waiting for people I’ve never
met.  Their names are Brian and Diane and I’m afraid something happened to
them, I saw them go into the Tomb of Kanakht near the Step Pyramid. 
I didn’t see them come out - although it’s possible that they did and I
missed them - but they haven’t been seen at the hotel since then.
    “If
they haven’t returned by morning, I’m going to go to Saqqara and go back inside
the tomb and search it completely.  There was a hallway